Following Hamas’ attack on Israel over the weekend, videos from other events and false claims quickly started to swirl on X, formerly Twitter. There was a doctored U.S. government memo claiming to show President Joe Biden announcing billions in aid for Israel. One X user posted a video of what was said to be a Hamas militant shooting down an Israeli helicopter, but was really an image taken from a video game. Then, there was the post claiming Israel had authorized a nuclear strike on Gaza, which was in reality footage of a 1950s nuclear test. 

So, Thierry Breton, one of the EU’s most powerful officials, fired off an open letter to Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and owner of X, which he subsequently reposted on the platform on Oct. 10.